There are some nearly 14-year-old children
all over this state who share a small piece of suffering. The Trail Blazers have not won a playoff series in their lifetime.

Well, Portland beat Houston on Sunday
123-120. Goes without saying, the game went overtime. It was another peptic ulcer. And what we now have is a
Blazers team that stands on the cusp of breaking all that franchise futility,
up three games to one against the Rockets.

"One more," LaMarcus Aldridge cried
out after. "One more."

The big guy spoke for the state.

Aldridge scored 29 points and had 10
rebounds. Great night. But not better than the fans who stood through most of
the fourth quarter and an overtime, legs shaking, arms folded, dining on their fingernails.

I looked up at the 300-level at the beginning of the
overtime and saw the silhouette of a man just standing, arms raised over his
head for a solid, hopeful, minute. Down on the 200 level, a woman covered her eyes while Aldridge shot free
throws later in the period, missing both. Below that, in section 119, a bald woman named Julie and
her husband, Bill, held each other close, watching the final seconds melt from the
clock.

"Fallopian cancer," she said to me.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Not well," she said. "So this is a
nice night out."

PORTLAND, OREGON - April 27, 2014 - Portland Trail Blazers management including owner Paul Allen congratulate the players as they head to the locker room as the Portland Trail Blazers face the Houston Rockets in game 4 of the NBA playoffs at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. Bruce Ely / The Oregonian

The Blazers played for coach Terry Stotts on
Sunday. They played for each other. They played for themselves. But all around,
it was unmistakable — they played for Blazers fans, too. Fans like Julie and
Bill, and that man raising his arms on the upper level. Fans like Matthew Vachter, the 15-year-old with cerebral palsy who wheels his chair to the tunnel near the locker room
each time he's at the game so he can high-five the players.

Vachter just screamed as the Blazers
ran past him. He's there most nights, and the team is now 42-7 with him around,
but he has never looked more excited than he did sniffing a playoff victory.

I met a man named Noah Wolfe on the concourse before the game. He had his son with him, but was distraught. Wolfe, a landscaper, told me he wanted to bring his 14-year-old to his first Blazers game, and had scalped a pair of lower-level tickets outside the arena for $400.

"Fakes," he said. "I got to the door and they were fakes."

Wolfe bought two more, these in the 300-level, for $150.

"It was all I could afford," he said. "We'll make the best of it."

I'll say.

Aldridge piled through the tunnel with
his teammates after the game. He turned right down the corridor, then left into
the mouth of the Blazers locker room. Often, owner Paul Allen goes to his
private room after games, but this time he just stood there, high-fiving the players, as they passed. He understands how close they are.

"I've got to make those free throws,"
Aldridge said as he passed the man who also owns a Lombardi Trophy.

Make no mistake: The Rockets feel
broken. Their hearts were ripped out on Sunday, and even if they muster enough
energy to win Game 5 at home, they don't feel like the kind of team that can
reel off three straight victories and steal this series. Regardless, what I loved most about the Blazers' victory was that the players looked hungry and focused after.

Only two players have been here for any extended stretch of futility, Aldridge and Nicolas Batum. But the rest seem to understand the stakes. Portland knows it's very close to breaking
through and ending that 14-year playoff victory drought. You can feel it all
around. As an organization, since losing in the Western Conference Finals in
2000, they've had some near misses, and some hopeful flirtations with a playoff
series victory.

Since making the conference finals in 2000, where they should have won an NBA title, Portland has missed the playoffs seven seasons, and exited with a first-round playoff loss in the other six seasons.

The franchise changed general managers and
head coaches like you change socks. "Knee surgery," became a curse phrase. The Blazers
won playoff games, but never a series in that span, and it's the kind of tough run
that makes a sports columnist declare there's zero-percent chance they'll ever
win a series again.

I said that. I believed that. I wrote
that, many times. And I want nothing more after seeing all those hopeful faces in the
arena, and a line of shrieks with every turn of fortune on Sunday, than to be
wrong by the time the teenagers of this state skip to bed on Wednesday night.

The Blazers — winners.

Try that on while we wait for Game 5, or 6 or 7, if necessary.

But not before we all understand that
it's going to take one more gutsy, ulcer-lined victory, probably in overtime, likely
with the Rockets chucking up shots, and the officials blowing their whistles along the way.

There was a moment on Sunday, maybe when Portland roared ahead only to be
caught by Houston in the closing minutes, or maybe early in the overtime, when I
believed this game, and this series might never end.

It's been a blast, yeah?

James Harden and Dwight Howard have
played the roles of villain brilliantly. Three games have gone to overtime, a
first in playoff history for the Blazers. And while a 3-1 lead is commanding on
paper, what we have here is a series that could easily be tipped the opposite
direction with Portland mired in futility.

Give the Blazers credit. They wiggled
out of Games 1, 2 and 4. They scrambled. They fought (SEE: Mo Williams) for
every loose ball, and valued every possession. When things didn't go right
(SEE: Robin Lopez), they didn't quit. They continued to battle.